Created in partnership with Portfolio, Condé Nast's new business magazine, our city business guides offer guidance for business travelers hoping to maximize their productivity (and enjoyment) while on the road. Stay tuned for more guides in the months to come.

Though widely acclaimed as the most romantic city in the world, Paris is also the business heart of the world's fifth-largest economy. Sure, the City of Light has some of the best hotels, wine, food, and high culture on the planet, but it's also home to a flock of corporate and international powerhouses, including AXA, LVMH, Renault, Société Générale, Total, and UNESCO. Have no doubt, this urban vixen is very much a wired, multicultural resident of the global commerce village.

Where to Sleep
The historic, storied Ritz has long been the pillowed choice of crowned heads of Europe and S. I. Newhouse, Jr., chairman of Condé Nast Publications. When the sleek Park Hyatt Vendôme debuted on the rue de la Paix in 2002, it signaled a change in the design of Parisian hotels— out with the Louis XV fauteuils, in with pared-down furniture. Media executives like Jonathan Burnham, publisher of HarperCollins, favor the Four Seasons George V. Fashion designers and the execs who run the business flock to the Hotel Costes. Hollywood dealmakers— such as Elliott Kastner— who like to duck the paparazzi look to the Raphaël, prized for its dark and velvety bar. When the road warriors of finance come to see BNP Paribas or Crédit Agricole, they bed down at the Hôtel Bristol, whose superb location (Élysée Palace, where the president of France lives, is down the street) matches its power-dining restaurant.

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Where to Eat
The country's reputation for culinary excellence stretches back almost a thousand years. The century-old Gaya Rive Gauche, which Pierre Gagnaire has updated with such inventive fare as haddock with grain risotto, is a must. Senderens serves dishes like foie gras with licorice powder; the desperately chic upstairs bar is where the local cognoscenti lunch. Global cuisine is also making inroads into Paris's traditional dining scene. The current fad of tapas is being spearheaded by the sublime L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, where diners sit at a bar on a high stool and nibble from small plates (ideal if you're eating alone). Le Bistro Paul Bert is the food critics' address of the moment. Finally, it's a schlep to get to Le Chateaubriand, in the outlying eleventh arrondissement, but it's worth the trouble for a meal at the city's hottest bistro.